Do demographics affect marital satisfaction?

This study examined the effects of age, education, number of children, employment status, and length of marriage on marital satisfaction. Seven hundred and eighty-seven nonrandomly selected married adults from the Flanders region in Belgium completed the Maudsley Marital Questionnaire (MMQ) (Arrindell, Boelens, & Lambert, 1983a). The results indicated a statistically significant difference between the marital satisfaction of the first married and remarried adults. A gender-level analysis showed a statistically significant difference between the marital satisfaction of men and women. Among the demographic variables, the effect of length of marriage was highly significant with marital satisfaction. In a separate analysis, we found that the effect of age and number of children had a statistically significant effect on the sexual adjustment of the respondents. Accordingly, we found that age, number of children, and length of marriage were significantly positively correlated with sexual adjustment (MMQ-S) and educational attainment with general-life adjustment (MMQ-GL) problems.